Use forthcoming digital maturity assessments to measure progress towards the core capabilities set out in What Good Looks Like – the framework that sets out to enable healthcare leaders to digitise, connect and transform services safely – and identify the areas that need to be prioritised in the development of plans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nWhen it comes to corporate services, however, the problem for the diverse range of organisations coming together to work as one system is in knowing what\u2019s already working well, and what needs improvement.<\/p>\n
\nUsing insight diagnostics to provide system-wide data and intelligence can aid decision-making across corporate services<\/h3>\n
By taking an agnostic and independent view, it\u2019s possible to co-create a holistic, joined-up roadmap for organisations to drive collaboration and best value across ICSs.<\/p>\n
Data and benchmarking can help ICSs to transform the back office. Detailed analysis can help identify what\u2019s working well, areas of inconsistency within and across an ICS, where the greatest improvements opportunities lie \u2013 and how investments can be best targeted \u2013 to support better and more informed decision-making across multiple organisations and identify potential savings.<\/p>\n
In this vein, an insight diagnostic exercise we ran with a leading pathfinder ICS highlighted not only the potential for system-wide service improvements, but also significant savings of \u00a37.3 million (26 per cent) on operational expenditure over the next ten years, including cash releasing savings of almost \u00a34 million.<\/p>\n
\nShared Corporate Services for the digital age \u2013 the shared service ecosystem<\/h3>\n
It is now more than 20 years since the concept of shared services for NHS business support functions came into existence.<\/p>\n
Philip Hewitson was acting Chief Executive at Northwick Park & St Marks Hospitals in North London when he was asked to lead the Department of Health\u2019s national programme to develop shared service arrangements for NHS business support functions.<\/p>\n
In Hewitson\u2019s view, shared services provide the best of both worlds. They enable the operational and strategic levels of an NHS organisation to concentrate on what they need to without having to worry about managing back-office systems as well.<\/p>\n
This frees up NHS Trusts, commissioners \u2013 and now ICSs \u2013 to concentrate on and develop the job they must do in delivering healthcare, planning, and commissioning health services. There\u2019s less duplication and access to high levels of automation from sophisticated systems that talk to each other. This, in his view, can only improve management and therefore, patient care.<\/p>\n
As he puts it, \u201cthere\u2019s a whole suite of benefits. Shared services are applicable in so many areas. When skills are so scarce and when money is so tight, why wouldn\u2019t you look to things that already exist?\u201d<\/p>\n
John Yarnold, another original proponent of shared services was Finance Director at Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust when he took up the post of Project Director of the programme.<\/p>\n
He points out that to successfully manage the health component of the ICS, the ICB will need transparent financial activity information consolidated at system level, but able to be interrogated at transactional level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I were directing this nationally, I\u2019d make it mandatory for all NHS organisations within an ICS to go with shared corporate services. From a finance and accounting perspective, have one common chart of accounts, one set of common processes, and then introduce enhanced systems to enable consolidation of the accounts at a national or regional level. Then, the ability to extract data from different sources and combine it with financial information. Data that\u2019s available to all partners within an ICS to inform and improve decision-making. That\u2019s what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Creating a shared services ecosystem of Finance, HR and Procurement services can empower healthcare leaders, giving them control to improve outcomes for their patients, staff and suppliers by reimagining shared corporate services for the digital age.<\/p>\n
At NHS Shared Business Services, we\u2019ve crunched the numbers and estimate shared services have the potential to deliver \u00a3400 million in operating savings across ICSs, can enable them to realise \u00a3726m+ of Procurement savings opportunities and attain 25 per cent in operational savings.<\/p>\n
With numbers like these at stake, and ICSs reportedly likely to post a combined deficit of \u00a3600 million for the current financial year, we simply cannot afford to let a lack of insight relegate these savings to the \u2018too difficult\u2019 pile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The introduction of integrated care systems (ICSs) gives the NHS a once-in-a-generation opportunity to streamline, standardise and level up care across an area \u2013 coordinating services and planning in a way that improves population health and reduces inequalities, writes Jordon Beevers, Director of ICS Solutions, NHS Shared Business Services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":4144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,26],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4139"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4200,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139\/revisions\/4200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}